Lawmakers want to expel Huckleberry Finn from N.J. schools

Two state Assembly members want New Jersey school districts to stop teaching Mark Twain’s novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” because of racist language and themes in the 134-year-old story.

The book chronicles the travels of Huckleberry Finn, who ran away from his abusive father, and Jim, a runaway slave, along the the Mississippi River. It’s set in the antebellum South but was written in the early days of the JIm Crow Laws.

It contains more than 200 uses of the N-word and “its depiction of racist attitudes can cause students to feel upset, marginalized, or humiliated and can create an uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom,” according to a resolution introduced Monday by Assembly members Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, D-Mercer, and Jamal Holley, D-Union.

“The inclusion of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the school curriculum in effect requires adolescents to read and discuss a book containing hurtful, oppressive, and highly offensive language directed toward African Americans,” the bill says. “The list of required reading in schools should be inclusive and considerate of all students, without content likely to cause students to feel uncomfortable and marginalized.”

But PIeter Roos, executive director of the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, says that Twain was ahead of his time in terms of racism and inequality.

“To look at Huckleberry Finn the way most people do, is to kind of surface exam it,” Roos said.

When Twain started writing the novel, it was meant to be a sequel to “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” He wrote a few chapters and then set it aside for years. In the meantime, Twain traveled down the Mississippi River on a steamboat and wrote “Life on the Mississippi.” This was the early 1880s, less than two decades after the civil war and slavery ended.

“He sees the early editions of the Jim Crow laws and he is deeply offended by them,” Roos said.

So, he returns to “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” with the mission of exposing the Jim Crow laws.

“This is one of the earliest pieces of American literature to take a stand against racism and he does that by really showing Jim as a human being ... a fellow traveler with equal rights and he depicts Huck’s growth,” Roos said. “That’s how the book should be taught.”

Reynolds-Jackson said it’s unclear how many school districts in New Jersey still teach "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” but she said a friend of hers who lives in West Orange said her daughter read it last year.

"When you look at how the book puts one group down and raises another up, in the climate we live in right now, it’s very, very cruel,” the assemblywoman said.

The resolution was spurred by an incident in Hopewell Township in which a white student reportedly used racial slurs and referenced lynching in social media posts. The parents of the victim in that incident reached out to Reynolds-Jackson, she said, and asked why the book was still part of the curriculum there.

The resolution is non-binding. If it passes, a request would be sent to school districts across the state asking them to voluntarily stop teaching the novel and offering other books in its place that could teach the same issues but in a less offensive manner.

Racism, Reynolds-Jackson said, is a difficult conversation even for adults to have. “It takes a really strong teacher to be able to have that conversation so ... that it’s respectful to all,” she said.

A spokesman for New Jersey Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet declined to comment because the legislation is pending. He also pointed out that “while the state sets overarching academic standards of what students should learn, the instructional materials and texts are selected at the local school-district level.”

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has long been a controversial book. Its history of being banned dates back to its publication year, 1885.

The state Senate and Assembly — both of which are controlled by Democrats — would each need to pass the bill and then Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy would need to sign it for the measure to become law.